TOP 11 of '11

It's the 5th year we get to thank you and wish you Happy Holidays from the heart (no joke).

We honestly love you for watching & sharing My Damn Channel original videos.

We promise to deliver the goods again in '12‚ and we'll be launching our new daily live show with YouTube, strangely titled: MY DAMN CHANNEL: LIVE


The staff took an informal poll and picked 11 faves from the past year‚ they're all HERE for your holiday dining and dancing pleasure:

1. WAINY DAYS - Kelly & Arielle (Part 1)
David Wain returns in the triumphant Season 5 of our longest-running hit comedy series with a killer new cast & a new sponsor: FIAT!

2. GIGI: ALMOST AMERICAN - Donate Good Cause
Josh Gad stars as "Gigi," an awesome, original character that infected our fans on My Damn Channel and on YouTube.

3. GARFUNKEL & OATES - David Wain is Sexy
Garfunkel & Oates created this chart-topper to honor WAINY DAYS with David Wain guesting on vocals and guitar.

4. DAILY GRACE - Official Sexy Friday song with Rebecca Black
Rebecca Black recently told YouTube that our My Damn Channel goddess, Daily Grace was one of her favorite people on YouTube. Grace invaded Rebecca's studio for the surprise awesome duet of the year.

5. HARRY SHEARER - Touch My Junk
Our patron saint and in-house hero has blown our brains with original videos since day ONE back in 2007. Here's his musical love note to airport TSA pat-downs.

6. MARK MALKOFF - Apple Store Challenge
MARK MALKOFF - Big Wheel vs. Bus
Every Malkoff adventure captures our imagination, lotsa video views and tons of well-deserved press. He tied for #6 with two videos that tapped the zeitgeist in 2011.

7. VERSAILLES - Episode #7
David Hunt created one of the most original series on My Damn Channel this year with an amazing cast joining him including Patricia Heaton, William H. Macy, Eve Gordon, Martha MacIsaac & the great Fred Willard.

8. SLACKTORY - Slackgeist 2011: The Year in Stupidity
We launched a new My Damn Channel Blog Network this year and Nick Douglas is running an awesome new site for us called Slacktory. Their blog posts are toooo good and they make videos tooo. Here's their year-ender.

9. WAINY DAYS - Kelly & Arielle (Part 4)
Thomas Lennon reunites with David Wain in this new episode from Season 5.

10. SAUL HERNANDEZ - Molecular (from our music channel produced by Don Was)
Don Was is one of the greatest musicians and music producers there is. He's been running our music channel here since day one in 2007 & we all fell in love with one of this year's original songs by Saul Hernandez, lead vocalist and songwriter for the Mexican bands Caifanes and Jaguares.

11. DICKI - Making Friends
We're in love with Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from "24"). She's a new member of the My Damn Channel fam with an original character comedy, DICKI.

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What happens if you follow our Twitter.

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(S)he is Risen!

Happy Friday, everyone!  As you know, this weekend marks the annual celebration of very solemn and important holiday; a time to gather with friends and family and reflect on what it means to be an upright, moral person in this chaotic, modern world.  That's right, it's Sherri Shepherd's birthday.

And to commemorate the comedienne’s 44nd, we'd like to point you toward two of the best Celebrity Autobiographies ever, featuring Sherri reading books by Madonna, which she handles solo, and by Destiny's Child, in which she's joined by comedy superheroes Mario Cantone and Jackie Hoffman.

So don't forget to toast this legendary funnywoman the way God intended: by eating yourself stupid on Cadbury Creme eggs.

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Thoughts of the Week

As an avid fan of Super Bowl Champions the Green Bay Packers, I've spent much of the last week celebrating by shoveling as many different kinds of cheese down my throat as possible. True, this is how I mostly go about life to begin with, but the cholesterol choking off my arteries and slowly murdering me has been especially festive as of late.
 
But not everyone was pleased with what went down on their TVs last Sunday. Steelers fans, sure. But music fans also suffered a devastating one-two punch in the forms of Christina Aguilera's freedom-hating National Anthem flub, and the Black Eyed Peas' over-aggressive imperative to "DRANK!" And then there are those weirdoes who only watch the Super Bowl "for the ads." And for these folks there was nothing more controversial and upsetting than Groupon's "save your money"-themed ads skewering celeb activism.
 
Okay, fair enough. A drunken, sports-obsessed viewing audience and a perhaps too-subtle bit of Swiftian satire do not the perfect marriage make. But if you're looking to be shocked, angered, and perplexed by advertising, these videos remain the gold standard...
 
First, we have this cute lil' nightmare factory from famed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.
  
What is Inochi-Kun? My best guess is ceaseless, unending horror. Don't even think about mushrooms while you watch this, or your eyeballs will start to bleed and white foam will start to come out of your nose.
 
And then there's this gem, from a pre-Muppets Jim Henson, shilling for the now-defunct Wilkins Coffee. 
 
Why is this lumpy little proto-Kermit being such a dick about coffee? What is his agenda? Frankly, I don't like being strong-armed into drinking dirty water. No wonder the Wilkins Company's mafia tactics drove them out of business.
 
But if you're looking for puppets, why not check out the frightening-yet-friendly beasties of Spook House Dave!? 
 
In this episode, the monsters try to cope with Dave's absence while he's away at summer camp. Suffice to say, they don't exactly hold it together. Maybe they just need to get out of the castle. I hear Groupon has some great deals on hot air balloon rides.

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American Football

It's Monday morning. My body is sweating out the alcohol to make a little more room for the residual Doritos and Oreos. The highs of Super Bowl Sunday have given way to the realization that the season is over. And now I have to pretend to like basketball until football starts again. 

The game between the Steelers and Packers was a great matchup between two storied franchises. Exciting until the end, the biggest event in American sports did not disappoint. But how did it look to foreign eyes?

CHECK IT OUT RIGHT HERE.

Looking at the Super Bowl with a non-American point of view has my American ass laughing. Some of the captions are so unintentionally funny, and make it sound like the Steelers and Packers are just old chums having a romp in the schoolyard. I'll let you find your favorite.

Are you ready for some futbol!!!

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New Celebrity Autobiography!

Last week we tried to ride in the wake of MacGruber's publicity wave and this week it's Sex and the City 2.  We put THOUGHT into these things, people!  SATC2 (do not judge us because we are down with the acronym) and The View favorite Mario Cantone reads Former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean's autobiography, Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks.  Yes.  Political attacks.  Sigh.

But she is pretty.  So there's that.

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Big Love from the Big Easy

'On assignment' in New Orleans for My Damn Channel.

If you're a resident here, you have our maximum respect and thanks for giving the rest of us one of the most magical places on earth. If you've visited, keep coming back. If you've never been...make it happen captain. You'll find warm souls, inspired sounds, the finest food, drink, fun and good times you can experience.

We lead with laffs at My Damn Channel. But there's more than comedy beneath your fingertips. This is why Harry Shearer was the first artist we asked to trust us to let him reach you without one drop of Hollywood execu-nonsense in the way.

Harry has lived in New Orleans for over a decade, shuttling from here to LA and the rest of his working world. From The Simpsons, to Spinal Tap, to SNL, to Le Show on NPR, Huffington Post, comedy albums, music, music videos, and more - Harry Shearer is an artist who never stops creating, entertaining, living and giving.

Harry has created many of the most-viewed, most-talked about videos on My Damn Channel. He has two projects in the works that you'll see next.

On June 4th, you'll see "Deaf Boys." Here's a sneak preview along with a note about the original song and short film to come.

This August, Harry will release a documentary feature film he's directed about the city he loves. "The Big UnEasy"  opens on the 5th anniversary of Katrina to tell the story about the un-natural disaster that nearly destroyed New Orleans. The film details why the levees broke, why the city is still in danger, and why Congress and The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is putting more cities like New Orleans at risk.

Harry will share news and videos about the making of his film over the summer. We presented a series of videos back in 2007, on the 2nd anniversary of Katrina called "Crescent City Stories."

http://www.MyDamnChannel.com/HarryShearer
http://twitter.com/letwits
http://www.HarryShearer.com

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The King And I: The Irreplaceable Howard Stern

Like millions of us, my stepmom is a lifelong Howard Stern fan. She just sent this photo taken off of Howard TV, airing our in-studio interview from earlier this week. I had the honor of being Howard Stern's guest on his Tuesday, 420 show (scroll to 840a).

Response is coming into My Damn Channel via email, phones, video views, comments, new subscribers, tweets, wall postings, and even a live spotting this afternoon in a clothing store (to complete the surreality). The influx of intense energy all flows back to a man undeniably uniquely qualified to hold the heavyweight title: "King of All Media."

Howard endures as one of the most talented and honest souls alive. He embodies the freedom of speech with every breath. For all who've been fired, laid off, downsized, pink slipped, discharged, axed, or job eliminated...it's hard to imagine speaking truth to power on a live microphone the way Howard has done it for decades.

I first followed Howard Stern on a carrier current, college radio station, 64 WTBU at Boston University. (There's a great scene depicting TBU in "Private Parts.")

If you've ever chased a radio dream, then your college years are likely the last time and place you ever experienced the fear and thrill of exercising your freedom of speech over a live mic.

Primordial FM rock radio stations were created in the late 1960's. Early heroes like Harry Shearer and Steven Clean were blowing minds at places like KPPC in Pasadena, California (which eventually became the world famous KROQ).

The combined forces of original radio talents and pre-corporate rock music created stations throughout the 70s powerful enough to infect audiences with a sense of community, purpose, passion, sex and fun that began to hit the wall around 1980.

I was sitting on the front steps of my apartment on Beacon Street in Boston with Steven Clean and my best friend, Mike Isabella the night Ronald Reagan was elected President. I was 20. I was about to drop out of college and take a full-time job as a rock radio jock at WAAF out in Worcester, Mass. One year later, I had the only radio thrill that came closest to being on Howard's show this week. Lightning struck and we convinced the Rolling Stones to do a private show for our station's fans in 1981 to start up the "Tattoo You" tour.

But, back to Mr. Clean. I'd been Steven's intern for a time at WCOZ in Boston. At that point in his career, Clean had been fired by many of the best radio stations in the country. He was a real life inspiration for the Dr. Johnny Fever character in "WKRP in Cincinnati." Steven was incredibly talented, brilliant, a true music expert and fan...and he was rebellious enough to drive the most patient souls to the edge of their sanity.

Considering the nation's new President, Steven held a joint firmly in my face and said, "See this? This is OVER!"
By the time of Reagan's second term, most radio station managers had a "Just Say No" policy for disc jockeys expressing free thoughts on mic, or taking free reign over any music playlist.

A small number of former radio station program directors shaved their beards, cut their hair, bought expensive suits, and armed themselves with halliburton briefcases filled with blow and bullshit designed to convince every fearful radio exec that they had the only secrets to ratings success, fortune and fame.

Conformity soon became the norm. Tighter playlists made stations sound the same from city-to-city. The job of disc jockey was transforming free thinkers into people paid to read positioning slogans, timechecks and weather forecasts.

In the midst of all this unholy homogenization, Howard Stern began to build a radio show free from the constraints put on most of his competitors. His talent grew on the radio and expanded with every carefully planned new project he launched.

Superfans know that Howard pays homage to legends who came before him like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. I can't think of another entertainer who has more succesfully won battles with corporate brass than Howard. One of the many surprises about the real man to outsiders is how he maintains his position with grace and wisdom.

No one knows what the next chapter will be for the Stern show in 2011. Assume Howard can see the possible moves on the chess board more clearly than most. As a fan, I'll be following as I have since the beginning. As a business owner, My Damn Channel stands ready to serve The King anytime he calls. 

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ICEMAN CHRONICLES OVER 300,000 VIEWS

You can now see all 6 episodes of Season 1 of "The Iceman Chronicles" here.

We launched one month ago, and the series just passed over 300,000 total views on My Damn Channel and on our syndication network. 

Thanks for the solid start and the feedback. Tell us more: da good, bad, ugly, lovely. 

Happy Friday THANKS to Rachel Webber, Ilsa Berg, Gabe Marano and all connected humans at Fox Television Studios and 15 Gigs for a hot first date.

MEGA THANKS to David Fickas, Brice Beckham, Drama 3/4, and the cast and crew for allowing us to join your world.

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My Damn Channel Oscar Predictions

Movie geniuses everywhere, including the amazing Roger Ebert, say this year's Oscars are more predictable than ever before. My Damn Channel opens our Hurt Locker full of fun to reveal the full list of winners you'll need to pick to take home the Oscar pool cash at tonight's viewing party. We'll be ready to be attacked or thanked in the morning:

Actor:   Jeff Bridges*

Supporting Actor:   Christoph Waltz

Actress:   Sandra Bullock

Supporting Actress:   Mo’Nique

Best Picture:   The Hurt Locker

Director:   Kathryn Bigelow

Foreign Film:   The White Ribbon (Germany)

Animated Film:   Up

Art Direction:   Avatar

Cinematography:   Avatar

Costume:   The Young Victoria

Documentary Feature:   The Cove

Documentary Short:   China’s Unnatural Disaster

Editing:   The Hurt Locker

Makeup:   Star Trek

Original Score:   Up

Original Song:   The Weary Kind (Crazy Heart)

Animated Short:   A Matter of Loaf and Death

Live Action Short:   The Door

Sound Editing:   Avatar

Sound Mixing:   Avatar

Visual Effects:   Avatar

Adapted Screenplay:   Up In The Air

Original Screenplay:   Inglorious Basterds


* Note: An inspiration for Jeff Bridges' character in "Crazy Heart," and the man who wrote most of the songs in the film, is the great Texas musician, Stephen Bruton. Stephen died last May, just two weeks after finsihing all his work on the film with T Bone Burnett.  You can see two of Stephen's songs produced by Don Was on our music destination at My Damn Channel. They're on Stephen's site linked above as well.

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